Chandigarh: Nothing can be better than education as it empowers a person. And a function organized on the eve of International Literacy Day, by the Indian Federations of United Nations Association and Chandigarh United Nations Associations on Saturday evening, focused on this.

Chairman, Punjab State Commission for Scheduled Castes, Naranjan Singh, the chief guest, said literacy is effective means for social and economic participation, contributing to human developments and poverty reduction. He further said that as per the census 2001, the percentage of scheduled caste population in Punjab is highest in the country, but if the literacy rate for Punjab is 69.65%, it is 56.20% for SCc.

Referring to the prime ministers new adult literacy programme (Sakshar Bharat, literate India) to achieve 80% literacy by 2017, he felt this would make a dent in unemployment of the youth, especially the scheduled castes and the backward classes.

Dr Upneet Lalli, deputy director, Institute of Correctional Administration, Chandigarh, said the only thing better than education is more education. She said we need to educate the women to set them free and educate the girl child to change her future.

The mission she said plans to reduce the gender gap from 21% to 10% while raising the literacy level to 80%.

Suresh Srivastava, secretary general of Indian Federation of UN Association and vice–chairman of World federation of UN Associations, Geneva, stated that in India, a million children in 6–14 years group do not attend school.

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